This is what she wanted’: Brown gets $1 million bond in robbery

Heather Brown looked tired. The 34-year-old suspect in a weeklong spree of bank robberies in three states walked slowly into Norwich Superior Court Tuesday to face charges in the first of six heists.

Greg Smith

Heather Brown looked tired.

The 34-year-old suspect in a weeklong spree of bank robberies in three states walked slowly into Norwich Superior Court on Tuesday to face charges in the first of six heists.

She stood quietly, with her wrists cuffed in front of her and a blank look on her face, as Judge Robert Young ordered her held on $1 million bond, citing her extensive criminal history and pending arrests.

Bail Commissioner Lois Dupointe said Brown has had at least 24 arrests, including nine felonies.

State police arrested Brown Monday afternoon in Hartford, a week after police said she walked into the Citizens Bank on Route 32 in Montville with a note and a purse, threatening to detonate a bomb.

“There is a bomb in the bag. Do not alert anyone or we will all die. Give me $600 cash,” the note read.

She has outstanding warrants in connection with robberies in Middletown, Windsor and Westerly, and is a suspect in bank holdups in Massachusetts and East Hartford. She was released from prison in May on a 2006 bank robbery conviction and recently spent time at a halfway house in Willimantic.

Young ordered Brown held under a medical and mental health watch.

Robert Duntz, Brown’s former boyfriend, wonders if she’ll ever get the substance abuse and mental health help he says she desperately needs. Along with a serious crack cocaine addiction, Duntz says he believes Brown suffers from a mental illness.

Duntz, 47, of Lebanon, was in tears recounting his rocky eight-year relationship with Brown that ended when she disappeared just weeks before the robberies started. Duntz said he knows Brown as a loving, generous and hard-working woman who is transformed into a different person when she is on drugs.

“When she picks up a pipe, it’s like Jekyll and Hyde. She becomes self-centered, lying, stealing, cheating. She goes from a person you love to a person you hate,” Duntz said. “When she’s using, she hates herself.”

Duntz said Brown, who originally is from the Coventry area, had secured a job as a cook at a Mansfield restaurant after she was released from prison.

‘Cry for help’

Her urges got the better of her, he said. Duntz said he suspects Brown was asking bank tellers for as much as she thought she needed to get high for the next day and never intended to hurt anyone.

“She’s either trying to overdose, get herself shot or go back to jail,” Duntz said. “She’s said, ‘I just don’t fit out here. I can’t make it.’ This is what she wanted.”

Brown’s friend John Ruley, 60, of Norwich agreed with Duntz.

“She supported her habit the only way she knows how,” Ruley said outside the Norwich courthouse. “It is a cry for help. She’s glad she got caught. She knew. She’s smart enough not to do it day after day after day. It’s sad.”

Brown can expect “a whole lot of court appearances,” in the coming days or weeks, according to Windsor Police Capt. Tom LePore.

He said a warrant is signed for Brown’s arrest in the Sept. 26 robbery at the CBT Bank on Broad Street in Windsor. She likely will be served and arraigned in court in Enfield in that case.

State police said they continue to investigate possible accomplices in the robberies because a man was seen driving in at least one robbery. A Norwich man was arrested as an accomplice in the Westerly robbery.

New details

A newly released police report shows the Citizens Bank in Montville may not have been Brown’s first choice for the start of the suspected robbery spree.

At 12:18 p.m. on Sept. 21, Montville police say Brown entered the Citizens Bank on Route 32 with a hood covering her head, placed a black purse on the counter and handed the teller a note demanding six $100 bills.

Eight minutes before that robbery and one mile north of Citizens Bank, Montville police said employees at the Dime Bank saw a woman fitting Brown’s description enter that bank. The woman had a hood over her head, carried a black bag and walked to the counter, where she appeared to be filling out a withdrawal slip, police said.

Employees described her as fidgety and agitated and said she left the bank without making a transaction, police said.

Duntz has been watching and listening with embarrassment and sometimes anger at the media’s accounts, and jokes, about Brown during her crime wave.

“It’s not cool. It’s a woman crying out for help who basically ended her life,” Duntz said.